THE AUTO INDUSTRY SAYS THAT SUV DRIVERS ARE SELFISH AND INSECURE
People who tool around in hulking, big-ass sport utility vehicles have been getting dissed a lot lately, but no one has raked them over the coals like the people who sold them the SUVs in the first place. The multibillion-dollar auto industry does extensive research into its customers, and lately that research has focused quite a bit on the people who buy SUVs.
Investigative reporter Keith Bradsher of the New York Times has looked into the SUV phenomenon for years. He's read marketing reports meant only to be seen within the industry; he's interviewed marketing executives from the car companies and from outside research firms.
The industry has come to some unflattering conclusions about the people who buy its SUVs. As summarized by Bradsher:
They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities....
They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others.
David Bostwick, the director of market research at Chrysler, told Bradsher: "We have a basic resistance in our society to admitting that we are parents, and no longer able to go out and find another mate. If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."
Bostwick says that compared to those who buy similarly large minivans, SUV drivers are selfish:
Sport utility people say, "I already have two kids, I don't need 20." Then we talk to the people who have minivans and they say, "I don't have two kids, I have 20 all the kids in the neighborhood."
One of General Motors' top engineers also spoke of the difference between minivanners and SUVers: "SUV owners want to be more like, 'I'm in control of the people around me.'" He went on:
With the sport utility buyers, it's more of an image thing. Sport utility buyers tend to be more like, "I wonder how people view me," and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that.
The executive VP for North American auto operations at Honda revealed: "The people who buy SUVs are in many cases buying the outside first and then the inside. They are buying the image of the SUV first, and then the functionality."
Jim Bulin, a former Ford strategist who started his own marketing firm, told Bradsher: "It's about not letting anything get in your way and, in the extreme, about intimidating others to get out of your way." Daniel A. Gorell, who also used to market for Ford and now has his own firm, says simply that SUV drivers are "less giving, less oriented toward others."
Defenders of SUVs have attacked Bradsher for reporting these things, but they always forget the crucial point: Bradsher isn't the one slamming SUV owners it's the auto industry itself.
